Rain On My Parade And I Will Cut You

Okay, first off–

*MUPPETFLAIL*

AAAAAAHH!

Wendy Davis! DOMA! Prop 9! Has this been crazy or what!?

AAAAAAAAAAHH!

I am proud of Texas, and I am never proud of Texas. And I can’t even tell you on the DOMA thing. Dude. Some days you can actually stand on a rock and watch history washing over you.

Ahem.

That said.

You know what I haven’t seen anyone say? Not once? On any of these things?

“Oh my god, you guys, we won and now the fight is over FOREVER and everyone can go home!”

Surprisingly lack of that.

Also, not much in the “The SCOTUS is the best thing ever and I totally agree with everything they have done in the last few years, GO SCOTUS!” line. Distinct shortage, actually.

Nevertheless, if any conversation goes for more than about five minutes with people going “OH MY GOD, THIS IS AWESOME!” someone will pop up and say “But the Voting Rights Act!” “But you just know that Rick Perry’s going to call another session!” “You know we haven’t really won.”

This is beginning to gall me.

Yes. This is a battle. It is not the war. It will never be the war. The war against bigotry and oppression is unending, like the war against stupidity and entropy and apathy.

We are still allowed to celebrate our victories.

We are still allowed to praise our heroes—to cheer for Wendy Davis and thousands of people who said “Fine, arrest me, I WILL BE HEARD.” That there may be another battle next week—and there will be—and we will likely lose it—does not make those acts of heroism any less heroic. It does not mean that we cannot cheer.

To put it another way, if I finish the patio, loads of rock, stone by stone, back-breaking labor and all—and I step back and go “Hot damn, the patio is lookin’ good!” and my husband* walks behind me and says “Yeah, but you know the upstairs hallway’s still not painted,” I am legally allowed to dismember him with a shovel.

(Pretty sure that was in our vows, actually. Have to double check. Unitarian minister, so it seems likely.)

So. You want to talk about this in your own space, for god’s sake, do it! Say “I have mixed feelings about this because of X and Y.” Say “I love this, but I’m scared that it won’t last.” Say anything you want—your blog, your Twitter, your opinion.

But if a bunch of people are cheering in their space, do you really need to wade in and go “Stop being happy right this minute! It’s not over! You haven’t REALLY won!”? Must you hit reply and say “But! But! But! HORROR DOOM WOE!” on the off-chance that they might possibly have one unadulterated moment of glee in a hard-fought victory?

Seriously, guys. Unless somebody is saying “WE HAVE WON FOREVER!” cut ’em some damn slack already. Tomorrow we will pick up the shovels again.

Give us one damn day to cheer.

 

 

*Ha! I love saying that. And now a whole bunch of my friends get to say it to, with the law behind them!

 

7 thoughts on “Rain On My Parade And I Will Cut You

  1. tea says:

    Hey! Husband!! Congratulations on that!

    And thank you for the head-slap. It IS the time to celebrate. And possibly name something Wendy.

  2. RhianimatorLGP says:

    As far as I’m concerned, she’s rescued the name Wendy forever. I had up to now written it off as a complete loss from a. The fast foodlike object place. and b. several idiots I’ve known with the name.
    All hail the Wendy!
    Yaaaaayzz!!!
    .
    .
    and on with the day.

  3. Escher says:

    The DOMA thing was just insanity from the get-go. I don’t care what your opinion on same-sex marriage is; the federal government doesn’t have the right to specify what states may or may not consider a valid marriage. They don’t get to declare what a state’s commonlaw marriage rules will be, they don’t get to specify prerequisites to a marriage license (like, say, required blood tests), and they don’t get to decide to ignore a legally performed marriage.

  4. Richard says:

    I agree with everything you’ve said here. I’m a Texan, and I sat up all night watching Wendy fight back. And yes, she did a powerful thing. And the DOMA/Prop8 decisions are a great step forward.

    And yet…I’m just so tired. I can’t help but look at the hate still spewing forward, from people I know, that I work with…I had to hide my head at my desk as a coworker a few desks over casually equated homosexuality with beastiality. Why didn’t I speak up?

    Why? I don’t even know any more…I get so angry, I get less coherent….and I’ve fought with the same people, many times, on the same issues. I feel like I’m beating my head against walls. I should see a victory here, but instead I’m looking at the voter id law here in Texas, at the Governor calling another special session, and all the hate and vitriol spewing forth.

    I’m just so tired. I wish I could feel happy right now, I really do. Instead, I just want to know why we have to fight so hard. Why is hate so easy for so many?

  5. Danielle says:

    It needs to go both ways. I’m one of the people who feels it was a minor bright spot in a bleak week and didn’t celebrate. Ultimately, I had to delete my posts from social media sites and stay away from them because I was receiving responses about how I was “refusing to accept the joyous occasion” and that I was wrong in seeing it as an overall bad week (one which had no positives for me, personally, as neither of Wednesday’s rulings improved things for me, while VRA carries risks since I have endured voter suppression.) In effect, I was told that by not joining them in their celebration I was “raining in their parade,” and they came into my spaces to say it while I intentionally stayed out of their spaces.

  6. Caz says:

    *reads post title*

    I had no idea you were part Glaswegian!

    It has been an awesome week in Americaland.
    Enjoy the parade 🙂

  7. The_Rippy_One says:

    Ever do that thing, where you walk into the middle of a conversation, and it’s a really cool conversation that you enjoy, and then someone asides something, and you just go “huh?” but you don’t want to derail the conversation by asking?

    I’m about to tangent for a second – sorry “Call Kevin my husband…” I was deeply under the impression that he already was, and had been for a rather long duration…?

    I tried going back through this blog…but I just killed 4 hours going back 3 pages because you are too dang interesting. that 4,000+ uncategorized entries also bodes ill for my search 😀 So, I’m asking, in the fashion of a confused puppy, something I should probably know better than to ask, “wha…?”

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